When I was in high school, we lived in Madison Wisconsin, and once or twice a year, we made a family pilgrimage to Rockford… for what you might consider a very strange reason.
When I say “we” made a pilgrimage, I should say “my mother made a pilgrimage”. But my mother didn’t drive, so that meant my father had to drive, which he was willing to do because my mother did all the cooking, and really asked for few favors in life.
We kids made the pilgrimage because we had no choice… It was a family drive, teenagers or not, and attendance was required.
I never even realized Rockford was a big city… we never saw the downtown area, which was probably bigger than in this photo, cos it was about 50 years later. We didn’t need to go downtown… Or to any parks, museums, or other amenities of the city.
No, we went to Rockford because it was near the northern border of Illinois. A few hours south, we could have visited our relatives in Chicago, and mostly in Peoria. We did, on other occasions when my father had vacation time.. and then we didn’t need to visit Rockford.
But these singular day trips, down and back in a few hours, had only one purpose. We get to the edge of town, and soon, signs would start popping up…. Margarine 25¢… Yellow Margarine 5/$1… Genuine Nucoa Margarine 27¢. Small stores and supermarkets, even, I think, a gas station or two.
It was an ongoing price war. Do you want more for a dollar, or your preferred brand? Would you buy 10 pounds to get a better price? The cars in the parking lots were almost all from Wisconsin.
Why? Because Wisconsin, lobbied by dairy interests, protected dairy farmers by not allowing yellow margarine to be sold in the state.
Even national brands has to be pure white, though most came with a little capsule or packet of yellow coloring. To use it, you had to unwrap the sticks, put the whole pound in a bowl, and knead in the coloring. You didn’t want it to melt, cos it would change the texture.
Then what? You had a bowl of margarine, not sticks.
My mother had finally found something to put her foot down about. So she’d pack some sandwiches, and we’d go to Rockford, where she’d buy a dozen or two pounds (I don’t remember) of yellow margarine, and we’d go home.
A friend wrote to me a few years after we left, when I was still in college, and told me they’d changed the law, and finally allowed yellow margarine in Wisconsin, for the first time in 70 years or more.
Think of the excursions I would have missed if it happened 8 or 10 years earlier!
BTW… I haven’t bought margarine in many years. I buy butter, and I use very little anyway.
Why didn’t my mother just buy butter? It was “too expensive.” But it couldn’t have been more expensive than driving to Illinois!
She also proffessed to prefer margarine, and believe it was healthier.
I didn’t start using butter until well into adulthood. And by today’s thinking, with the price of gas, I’m sure that trip would never have happened, as you mentioned. Great memories, tho.
The story seems to go that photographers, after taking so many photos for cabinet cards and other advertising for various businesses, including pictures of their presumably popular banner ladies, decided to join the club, and hired their own banner ladies to show off their work.
Yup, sonny, I’ve chased quite a few cats in my time. Squirrels too, when they weren’t always hiding. Never caught one, but the fun is in the chasin’. You’ll learn that as you get older.
One of my mother’s favorites … though she considered him of a younger generation, cos she was about 6 years older… he tended to play moody loners, sad heroes and the like.
You might remember him from…
A Place in the Sun, the Misfits, or Suddenly Last Summer… And lots of others.
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There is nothing better than lying in the grass with the sun warming your fur, and a pillow for your weary head.
Rockford Illinois-1914
When I was in high school, we lived in Madison Wisconsin, and once or twice a year, we made a family pilgrimage to Rockford… for what you might consider a very strange reason.
When I say “we” made a pilgrimage, I should say “my mother made a pilgrimage”. But my mother didn’t drive, so that meant my father had to drive, which he was willing to do because my mother did all the cooking, and really asked for few favors in life.
We kids made the pilgrimage because we had no choice… It was a family drive, teenagers or not, and attendance was required.
I never even realized Rockford was a big city… we never saw the downtown area, which was probably bigger than in this photo, cos it was about 50 years later. We didn’t need to go downtown… Or to any parks, museums, or other amenities of the city.
No, we went to Rockford because it was near the northern border of Illinois. A few hours south, we could have visited our relatives in Chicago, and mostly in Peoria. We did, on other occasions when my father had vacation time.. and then we didn’t need to visit Rockford.
But these singular day trips, down and back in a few hours, had only one purpose. We get to the edge of town, and soon, signs would start popping up…. Margarine 25¢… Yellow Margarine 5/$1… Genuine Nucoa Margarine 27¢. Small stores and supermarkets, even, I think, a gas station or two.
It was an ongoing price war. Do you want more for a dollar, or your preferred brand? Would you buy 10 pounds to get a better price? The cars in the parking lots were almost all from Wisconsin.
Why? Because Wisconsin, lobbied by dairy interests, protected dairy farmers by not allowing yellow margarine to be sold in the state.
Even national brands has to be pure white, though most came with a little capsule or packet of yellow coloring. To use it, you had to unwrap the sticks, put the whole pound in a bowl, and knead in the coloring. You didn’t want it to melt, cos it would change the texture.
Then what? You had a bowl of margarine, not sticks.
My mother had finally found something to put her foot down about. So she’d pack some sandwiches, and we’d go to Rockford, where she’d buy a dozen or two pounds (I don’t remember) of yellow margarine, and we’d go home.
A friend wrote to me a few years after we left, when I was still in college, and told me they’d changed the law, and finally allowed yellow margarine in Wisconsin, for the first time in 70 years or more.
Think of the excursions I would have missed if it happened 8 or 10 years earlier!
BTW… I haven’t bought margarine in many years. I buy butter, and I use very little anyway.
Why didn’t my mother just buy butter? It was “too expensive.” But it couldn’t have been more expensive than driving to Illinois!
She also proffessed to prefer margarine, and believe it was healthier.
I didn’t start using butter until well into adulthood. And by today’s thinking, with the price of gas, I’m sure that trip would never have happened, as you mentioned. Great memories, tho.
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Looks like a Hopper fan…
I don’t see a fan.
..
I’m guessing Kingfisher.
According to the caption I found, it’s a blue-throated bee eater, and “a national second-class protected wild animal”, in China.
It says he’s diving into the water to cool off, in Nanchang.
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So which side of the road would you rather live on…?
I think that if you tried to live in the park, they’d kick you out. But I probably couldn’t afford to live on the other side.
.
Barney and Miss Beasley at the White House.
Yes…. They were George and Laura Bush’s Scottish terriers.
Barney was 4 years older than Miss Beazley, who was his niece.
Oil on canvas by Constance Coleman… 2005
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The first ad for the Mile High Club…
Um…. er… (blush)… It might be…. difficult… to join the Mile High Club in a blimp.
More difficult in a train or an auto.
LOL…. Unless you’re way high up on a mountain.
Or maybe in Denver… does that count?
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“Hey, lady — ya got a camera on your head!”
The story seems to go that photographers, after taking so many photos for cabinet cards and other advertising for various businesses, including pictures of their presumably popular banner ladies, decided to join the club, and hired their own banner ladies to show off their work.
And apparently, some of their equipment as well.
,,,
Yup, sonny, I’ve chased quite a few cats in my time. Squirrels too, when they weren’t always hiding. Never caught one, but the fun is in the chasin’. You’ll learn that as you get older.
,,.
An ad from the May 1950 issue of Life magazine.
The 1950s Champion spark plugs spokesdog apparently went unnamed.
,.,
So where are the horses?
Under the hood, I presume.
80 or so, near as I can tell.
You can fit more in the engine than you could in the traces.
Under the hood.
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This seems to tell the most about it:
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/folding-bathtub-history-37294726
This one has better pictures:
The “Murphy bed” of bathtubs?
Don’t “go” in the Mosely folding bathtub? Does that mean what I think it does???
I wondered too…. but I don’t think so, and I certainly hope not!
The problem is, I can’t figure out what the heck it does mean.
From the other ads that I ran across, this might even be a substitution of the original words in the ads.
He looks so familiar, but I can’t put a name to him.
Sorry… not that I know of.
My mistake. I thought he was the brainwashed soldier/assassin in the film. But no, that was Laurence Harvey.
I didn’t recognize the boy, but I do recognize
One of my mother’s favorites … though she considered him of a younger generation, cos she was about 6 years older… he tended to play moody loners, sad heroes and the like.
A Place in the Sun, the Misfits, or Suddenly Last Summer… And lots of others.
..
Ooh! A new FTND?
Okay… I suppose some of you are looking for answers.
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I think I can help with the ones for tonight’s… er… today’s… puzzle.
You can see that there are differences between panel one and panel two…. in fact, hopefully, you see nine differences.
Hope you find searching for them… um.. bassenating… (Ok, let’s just pretend I didn’t say that.)
When you’re finished, you can get your paws on the solution…
X-1. The one
I found that one,
Eight, but at first glance I was wondering if if Nighthawks had posted two identical pictures as a bit of a jape….
Don’t give me any ideas!
YESSSS!!!
‘A Waiting Friend’, c.1880 by Felix Schlesinger (German, 1883 – 1910), Oil on panel, 30 x 25 cm (11.8 x 9.8 in).
Clouded Leopard, for Caturday.
Grey-Hooded Atilla – endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.